Microsoft has increased the price of its Surface and Surface Book computers in the UK by more than 15%, or £400 for some models, due to sterling’s drop in the value post-EU referendum.

The price increase comes in the wake of similar moves by Sonos and twice by Apple, which saw the cost of computers, speakers and apps rise by as much as 25% adjusting for the falling value of sterling against the dollar, in which Microsoft and other US technology firms do their accounting.

The economy is changing in structural ways that affect not just the job market but the nature of work itself. If we ask, what is work?, the conventional answer is tasks that somebody will pay us to do. This is true, but it doesn't address why someone is willing to pay us. The answer is to create value. ... [ Skills, not Expertise. ] ...... As technology's ability to replace costly human labor moves from the factory floor to the service sector, the nature of middle class work is changing. [ IBM's company wide Pivot over +10 years from HW to Services and Software Company. With the accompanying downsizing. ] ... Jobs that can be learned in a few hours are prone to being replaced by machines. [...] The protected sectors beset by soaring costs (healthcare, higher education, major weaponry programs, finance, etc.) will undergo the creative destruction of technology-based productivity gains for the reason that they are already unaffordable, not just to households but to the nation.

The grim truth about pay and living standards in some the regions of the UK has also been highlighted by official EU figures showing that parts of Britain are effectively poorer that countries from former communist countries in Eastern Europe. People in Cornwall and the Welsh Valleys are worse off than residents of Estonia and Lithuania, according to Eurostat figures comparing wealth across the EU using a measure known as “purchasing power standards” - which takes into account GDP per person and cost of living. In addition, Durham and the Tees Valley, in the north east of England, are poorer than those in the wealthiest regions of Bulgaria and Romania, the two most deprived countries in the EU. By contrast, the Eurostat figures show that London is the richest place in Europe.